


When I'm Awake

by sanders



Category: Shadow of the Templar
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-01
Updated: 2010-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanders/pseuds/sanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The red room's like a Nevada whorehouse. Nate wears pajamas that could reboot his system. Johnny sleeps with Nate. In the same bed as Nate, not <em>with</em> Nate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I'm Awake

Johnny whips the gun out from under the spare pillow as soon as the door creaks open, sitting up and going tense, aiming at the body creeping along the far wall and toward the window. A sliver of moonlight comes through the curtains and glints off glasses, and Johnny lets out a slow breath.  


"Nate, the fuck are you doing? I coulda killed you," Johnny says, placing the gun on the nightstand and rubbing his hands over his face.

"Believe me, I'm aware of that now," Nate says, sounding breathless and more than a little unsteady. "I'm sorry. I didn't--I knocked and your light was on and I didn't mean to startle you. I'm sorry; I'll go."

"No, don't. It's okay, Specs," Johnny says. "Just kind of on edge. What can I do you for?"

Nate giggles, clearly still full of nerves, and fusses with his glasses. Sometimes, he reminds Johnny of the teenaged girls they encounter once in a while, the ones flustered by Mike and Simon and having him actually hold a door and call them 'miss'. Except Nate's no teenager and certainly no girl.

"I just--Sandy and Mike are--and Templar's asleep and Dave's so far in the computer he can't _hear_ and I don't--" Nate stops and takes a breath. "The house is too _big_ and I can't sleep. I thought you were still awake. I knocked and everything."

"Haven't been in bed long," Johnny says, shrugging. "C'mon up here. Bed's big enough for a damn orgy with room to spare."

"That's for sure," Nate says as Johnny moves aside. He climbs up beside him and Johnny notices the pattern on Nate's pajama pants isn't the white on blue abstract he thought but computer keys, 'ctrl, alt, delete,' over and over again. Figures.

"This whole place is too damn big," Johnny says, steering his thoughts away from Nate's pants and back toward more general, appropriate things. "Like the architect went right past hotel to mall, just forgot to put in the stores."

"Yeah, it's kinda creepy, but I guess Shadow's used to this kind of thing." Nate doesn't sound so sure, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. "Besides, my room is pretty nice. Yours is... um."

"Like being in a Nevada whorehouse," Johnny says. "Might be why I like it. Reminds me of getting laid. Too bad I'm starting to forget what it's actually like with somebody else in the room."

Nate makes a faintly distressed sound, ears going a red that puts the bedding to shame. "Seems like everybody's having a dry spell except Sandy and Honda," he says, still managing to put a sentence together, and Johnny gives him points for that. "Dave's got a girlfriend but he never sees her, and I thought maybe Templar had somebody, but I don't know now."

"Think he's at least getting some, the way he grins sometimes, but it ain't a relationship," Johnny says, stretching out on his back.

"If he is, that's half the team," Nate says. "That's not so bad."

"Except for being in the half that ain't," Johnny points out.

"Yeah, but you get used to it after a couple of years," Nate says, shrugging. He looks away when Johnny glances up at him, cheeks matching his still-red ears.

"Years?"

"I kinda... the first couple of years, I didn't exactly notice," Nate says. "It's not that important, plus it's not like I want to explain what happened and I'd kinda have to if I met somebody but I'm not looking anyway."

"Some women think scars are sexy," Johnny says. "Some men, too." Nate chokes on the breath he was taking and whatever words he was about to say. Johnny sits up a little to pat him on the back. "I figured out a long time ago you swing both ways. Know who you got yourself a huge crush on, too."

"You--you do?"

"Have to be blind not to see how you get around the guy," Johnny says. "Archer so much as looks at you, you go all starry-eyed. Too bad he's a criminal or you could give your momma some real cute grandkids."

"Just what she always wanted," Nate says. "Half-Jewish, half-thief ass-babies with dual American-British citizenship."

Johnny lasts about fifteen seconds before he starts laughing and Nate holds out for about three more. When they quiet down, Nate keeps his grin and Johnny decides he likes him this way, a little punchy and flushed from giggling instead of being startled and embarrassed over nothing.

"You're wrong, you know," Nate says after a few minutes. "He's... even if he weren't--even if he didn't do what he does, he's not my type."

"Not into pretty boys?" Johnny asks, not sure why he wants to know or why it even matters.

"Pretty boys aren't into me and I'm not into rejection," Nate says. "You know, I'm starting to feel like we should be watching Johnny Depp movies and braiding each other's hair."

Johnny chuckles. "Yeah, kinda does remind me of my sister's slumber parties," he says, pushing the blankets back. "Probably oughta try sleeping before you get a notion to start a pillow fight."

"You want me to--to stay?" Nate's eyebrows take an upward leap and his eyes go wide behind his glasses.

"Might as well," Johnny says. "Least we won't be alone, right? And it ain't like we never shared a bed."

"I thought we were never talking about that again," Nate says, taking off his glasses and laying them down on the nightstand by Johnny's gun. He slides down under the covers, so far to the edge of the bed Johnny thinks he'll go tumbling of if he takes a deep breath.

"Not talking about it now," Johnny says, shrugging. "I ain't gonna bite you, not unless you ask."

"I should call your bluff," Nate says, moving in a few inches.

"Don't have to," Johnny says, turning onto his side to face Nate. "Truth is, I put my mouth anywhere on you, it won't be to bite."

"Um... I don't..." Nate stumbles over the words, rubbing his hands over his face. "What?"

"Just saying, better things to do than bite you, were things to go that way," Johnny says.

"But they'd never--you'd never do that," Nate says.

"Probably not, but you never know," Johnny says, folding one arm under his head and closing his eyes on Nate blushing again.

*

Johnny wakes up exactly the same way he did after Cincinnati when Nate showed up at his house with pizza, which is just like he did after they saw the last of Farraday and Nate crawled into his bed at the hotel.

In other words, he wakes up with Nate cuddled against him, blond hair tickling his nose, and Nate's morning wood poking against his hip. The urge to do something about it, all of it, is there, too, but like those other mornings, he edges himself free by centimeters and pads off to the bathroom to piss, brush his teeth, and ultimately decide against a shower in favor of more sleep.

Nate moved while he was gone, rolling from his right side to his left, and Johnny crawls back into bed with him, thinking about staying in his own space. The soft warmth of spooning up against Nate wins out, just like it did at the hotel, and Johnny drapes his arm over Nate's waist, mouth barely brushing the back of Nate's neck, barely anything that could be called a kiss.

"Do it when 'm awake," Nate mumbles, stretching a little and settling back against Johnny. Wriggling back against him is closer to the truth, until his ass is right up against Johnny's crotch, and if he weren't already snoring again, Johnny'd swear it was on purpose. Even Nate's not _that_ innocent.

Johnny gives himself exactly one minute to think about it, not quite long enough for his dick to take a real interest in things, and then goes back to sleep himself.

*

The next time Johnny wakes up, it's to quiet voices across the room. Nate, with one of the worst cases of bedhead Johnny's ever seen, stands grinning at Archer, perfectly dressed as usual. He might be a thief but he really does have style, Johnny can give him that, and Nate really does seem to notice.

"...believe he's awake. Good morning, Johnny," Archer says. "I do apologize for disturbing you. I only wanted to let Nate know I've brought back the items he requested and that he may need a hand sorting through them."

Johnny blinks and rubs his eyes as he sits up. "Mornin'," he says, voice run to gravel. "'s okay. Need to be up by now anyway."

"I believe there's still coffee and food downstairs," Archer says. "I'll leave you to it. I've business to see to."

"I should go, too," Nate says, hesitating before coming over to the edge of the bed. "Thanks for... um. For letting me sleep with you." No sooner than he's said it, he turns red. "I meant letting me sleep here. In your bed. With you. Not..."

"I know what you meant, Specs," Johnny says, smiling. He reaches out and ruffles Nate's hair, partly to see if he can make it stand up any more that it already is, and partly just because he feels like it.

"Oh, good," Nate says, smiling back at him. "Did you--I dreamed you, um, kinda kissed me, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I only have that dream when we sleep together, in the same bed and it's happened a couple of times and--"

"'cause you didn't dream it," Johnny admits, sheepish about it but doing his damnedest to hide it.

"Oh." Nate's hand comes halfway to his mouth, his lips a perfect 'o' of shock that has Johnny thinking ten kinds of inappropriate things. Nate steps back toward the door and nods like he's reached some decision. "Okay. Well. Try it when I'm awake next time," he says, smiling again before letting himself out of the room.

"Might do," Johnny says to himself, leaning back against the headboard and folding his hands over his stomach. "Just might do."


End file.
